Photos: Apple's Antennagate, Farnborough air show and Windows Phone 7

Photos of the month - July 2010

Last month saw Apple's much-anticipated iPhone 4 dogged by reports of reception problems.

To address the company's PR nightmare, Apple held an invite-only press conference to discuss the iPhone 4 and the signal issues associated with the device.

Dubbing the situation "Antennagate", Apple CEO Steve Jobs told the event that getting signal loss from holding the iPhone 4 was "not unique" when compared to other smartphones.

For more pictures from Apple's Antennagate event, see the full photo story here: Scenes from Apple's iPhone 4 'Antennagate'.

Antennagate or no Antennagate, the apps just keep coming for the Apple iPhone.

Last month silicon.com rounded-up a selection of handy wares for HR professionals including social networking apps, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, as well as an interview-help app.

Our round-up also features Direct Report - pictured above - an employee feedback app.

You can check out our other handpicked HR iPhone apps here: Nine iPhone apps for HR professionals.

Screenshot: iTunes/Direct Report

iPhone-owning finance pros were also in the frame as we plundered Apple's App Store for number-cruncher friendly wares.

For iPhone candy ranging from the FT's app to currency converters, VAT calculators (shown above), fiscal dictionaries and accountancy study aids, check out our round-up of top finance iPhone app tools here: 10 iPhone apps for finance professionals.

Screenshot: iTunes/Direct Report

The next version of the iPhone OS, iOS 4, is due to arrive on the iPad in autumn and will appear not only on iPhones but on the Apple iPad too.

This photo gallery shows 10 ways we think iOS 4 will really come into its own when deployed on an iPad.

One way is deeper folder management with folders seeming to make even more sense on the larger iPad screen.

On an iPhone, iOS 4 folders tend to devolve into squares housing tiny coloured dots, whereas the iPad's larger icons could actually depict folder contents more usefully.

For nine other ways the iOS 4 will shine on the iPad, see the full gallery: 10 ways the iPad could have magic touch with iOS 4.

Apple's iPad tablet may be just a few months old but there are already thousands of dedicated apps available for the tablet gadget.

And it's not all games and fart apps either - armed with a tenner, silicon.com rounded-up 10 office-friendly iPad apps that promise to help white-collar workers boost their productivity.

Pictured here is Web Offline, an app that enables an iPad user to cache online content for viewing and searching at times when connectivity is scare.

For more office-friendly iPad paid apps, check out this photo story: Turn your iPad into an office helper for a tenner.

Screenshot: Web Offline by Natasha Lomas/silicon.com

Apple has also produced its own apps for iPad - including reworking its Pages and Numbers software from its Mac iWorks productivity suite for the tablet device.

For a look at how the word processing package and spreadsheet program perform on iPad, check out this photo story: Apple's Pages and Numbers apps for iPad.

Screenshot: Pages for iPad by Natasha Lomas/silicon.com

Apple's iPad is not the only tablet in town of course: networking giant Cisco revealed last month that it has cooked up an Android-based slate aimed at enterprise users.

Due for release early next year, the Cius, pictured above, will integrate with Cisco collaboration software such as its TelePresence videoconferencing application, WebEx online meeting software and its UC offerings.

The device will also be able to draw on third-party apps via the Android Market.

For more on Cisco's Cius tablet, see: Cisco means business with Android tablet.

July also saw Microsoft hold its eighth annual Imagine Cup contest, in which students from around the world attempt to solve global problems using technology.

This year's competition attracted entries from 325,000 high school, college and university students from 113 countries.

Shown above is the Korean team demonstrating the R U Gentle system to the judges at the Imagine Cup final held in Warsaw, Poland. The system is aimed at helping drivers operate their vehicles in the most efficient way, reducing emissions and saving money partly by reducing driver stress, meaning they drive more responsibly.

To see what other ideas the competitors came up with, see the full story here: Battling for Microsoft's Imagine Cup - from RoboNanny to augmented reality.

Photo credit: Microsoft

Microsoft Research unveiled some of its work on artificial intelligence software at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London last month.

This is a shot of Microsoft's OrganNavigator software, which uses machine learning to make it easier for doctors to browse through MRI scans.

To see more artificial intelligence programs in action see: AI enters the home and the workplace.

Microsoft isn't just future-gazing when it comes to artificial intelligence, it's also been able to predict what'll be in techies' Christmas stockings this year too.

At a London event last month, Microsoft unveiled its festive line-up, including additions to its peripherals range, shown above.

To see what else will be appearing this Noel, check out: What's in Microsoft's Christmas stocking this year?

More notable Microsoft news came in the form of an update on its mobile OS, Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft began shipping preview devices from Samsung and LG to developers last month in order that they can begin real-world testing of their apps before the big launch. silicon.com sister site CNET News.com had a few days with one of the preview devices to take Windows Phone 7 for a test drive.

A large part of Windows Phone 7 is centred around Hubs, which brings together related content into one central zone. Pictured above is the People hub, where you can find all your contacts, see their status updates, and more.

For more on how Windows Phone 7 will look in the flesh see: Microsoft Windows Phone 7 in action.

Photo credit: Bonnie Cha/CNET

And in part two of our Windows Phone 7 preview, you can get the lowdown on video, music, Bing and Xbox features of the operating system.

Windows Phone 7 offers full Zune functionality, including access to the Marketplace - pictured here. In addition, if you have a Zune Pass subscription, you can stream unlimited music.

For more pictures see part two of the Windows Phone 7 gallery here: Windows Phone 7's multimedia - video, music, Bing and Xbox .

Photo credit: Bonnie Cha/CNET

Like Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, the Samsung Wave was also initially unveiled at Mobile World Congress in February.

This month, silicon.com sister site CNET News took at closer look at the device - the first phone to use Samsung's Bada mobile operating system.

The Wave's touchscreen and Samsung's TouchWiz 3.0 user interface house the majority of controls, but there are a couple of physical buttons below the display, including Talk and End/power keys and a main menu button, pictured here.

For more of the handset in action, see: Samsung debuts Bada smartphone, the Wave.

Samsung may be showing off Bada phones but it's not put a halt to its work on Google-based devices.

Last month silicon.com also featured the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy phone, which features a Super Amoled touchscreen and the Layar Reality Browser that allows users to view augmented reality content.

You can check out the Galaxy in more detail here: Samsung's Galaxy smartphone stars augmented reality.

Another July Android debut came in the form of the ZTE Racer, a budget device available on the 3 network for £99.

The device is available in any colour as long as it's black and is navigated by means of a resistive touchscreen.

To get a closer look at the device, see: £99 Android smartphone unveiled by ZTE.

Photo credit: Jo Best/silicon.com

From Racers to Colliders: the Large Hadron Collider is a mammoth, $8bn particle accelerator housed in a ring 27km in circumference about 100 meters beneath a valley west of Geneva and operated by a multinational nuclear physics organisation called Cern.

It's designed to look back at the earliest moments of the universe and last month silicon.com's sister site CNET News.com went for a look around.

Pictured here is a view inside the Atlas detector, which physicists hope to use to find and detail the Higgs boson, a particle believed to imbue more conventional matter with mass.

For more from Cern and the LHC, see the full photo gallery here: A tour of Cern's Large Hadron Collider.

The LHC wasn't the only great scientific institution opening its doors last month: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also took silicon.com for a look around its Media Lab to see some of the technologies that it is working on.

This is SandScape, a system that allows people to reshape a computer-generated model of physical terrain using their hands, as seen here.

See more of the technologies to come out of MIT's Media Labs here: The weird and wonderful inventions from MIT's Media Lab.

Photo credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com

Scientific experiments including research on genomics, epidemiology, cosmology and more have all been through the University of Cambridge's high-performance computing (HPC) centre.

In a collaboration with Dell last month, the HPC centre has announced it will publish the results of its work in building and running HPC stacks in the form of whitepapers and technical bulletins to share with the HPC community.

Two screens at the centre, above, show the time remaining for each job currently being processed by the HPC centre (left) and the temperature inside each compute node of the cluster (right).

To take a tour of the machine room that powers the centre, see: Dell and Cambridge University's high performance computing centre.

Photo credit: Jo Best/silicon.com

In July computer-maker Dell also showed off some of its high-tech hardware destined for hospitals and schools.

The systems were among the new tech on show at the Dell Technology Camp at The O2 arena in London, an event showcasing the company's latest line-up.

Here is a demo of Dell's connected classroom set-up, where each pupil is given a ruggedised Dell Latitude 2110 touchscreen laptop to use during their lessons.

The teacher's computer can display thumbnails showing live video feeds of all the screens of the children's laptops, allowing the teacher to monitor what the pupils are up to.

Discover more new tech heading for schools and hospitals here: Dell shows off connected classrooms, high-tech hospitals and military laptops.

From Dell to Intel, as the chip company also showcased what experimental tech it's been working on with its annual Research Day held last month at the Computer History Museum in California.

Once per year, the Research Day gives Intel's researchers a chance to show off their forward-thinking projects in a science fair-style exhibition.

The Holodeck Car, pictured above, enables a 3D projection of a full-size car that can allow engineers to fine-tune the fuel-efficiency of the vehicle and placement of different parts before ever having to manufacture a single model.

For more from the day, see: Future tech from Intel's labs - from robot butlers to gesture recognition.

Intel is also involved in a project to create a car designed to travel faster than the speed of sound, which is to use the company's chips.

The Bloodhound Super Sonic Car will use Intel's Atom processors, normally found in netbooks, to help control the car's jet-powered propulsion system and guide the in-car control system.

The Bloodhound Experience, pictured above, is a simulator designed to allow members of the public to try their hand at piloting the Bloodhound SSC, and was on display at the Farnborough air show.

For more on the Bloodhound Super Sonic Car, see the full photo gallery here: Intel chips powering the 1,000 mph Bloodhound car.

Photo credit: Intel

silicon.com's sister site CNET News.com also went for a look around the Farnborough air show to take in the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on display there.

Northrup Grumman's MQ-8B Fire Scout, pictured here, is a helicopter design that can be equipped with modules for communications relay, land-mine detection, electronic eavesdropping and observation.

For more photos from the event, see: Farnborough air show demos the planes that fly without pilots.

More military tech came courtesy of iRobot last month.

While iRobot may be best known for the Roomba, its cute vacuum-cleaning robot, its signature product is just the tip of the iceberg.

In some circles iRobot is better known for its military robots, including the PackBot and the SUGV, both small ground-based robots designed to go into combat situations in search of explosives, or to do search and rescue operations.

Pictured here is Ariel, a prototype from 1996. Designed to take mines and other obstacles out of shallow water, it allowed its operator to remain far away.

There's plenty more military robots where they came from with this photo story: iRobot - from Roomba to the battlefield.

We closed the month off with a final piece of hardware: the latest version of the Amazon Kindle, which Amazon announced will be arriving shortly in the UK.

The new Kindle model is more compact than its predecessor and has double the storage, increasing its capacity to 3,500 books.

You can see more pictures of the revamped Kindle in this photo story: Amazon updates its Kindle ebook reader.